


Third Valentine's the Charm

by Castillon02



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Fluff, Food, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 13:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20026291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: The first time, Bond was in Rio from 3 to 16 February, and between him and 003 in Kiev, Q didn’t even think about Valentine’s Day until he was browsing the half-priced chocolate at his local Waitrose.





	Third Valentine's the Charm

**Author's Note:**

> For 007 Fest 2019. Started writing this in February 2017 and only finished it this year, so the third Valentine was the charm in more ways than one. :D

The first time, Bond was in Rio from 3 to 16 February, and between him and 003 in Kiev Q didn’t even think about Valentine’s Day until he was browsing the half-priced chocolate at his local Waitrose. He frowned; he didn’t even know if Bond liked chocolate. Bond usually skipped dessert when he was ordering on missions, but whether that was due to personal tastes or an effort not to grow out of his precisely fitted suits, Q wasn’t sure. 

Bond’s preferred afters in London were coffee or scotch, and Q. 

Q bought a variety of different chocolate things, stuck it all in the refrigerator, and pretended not to notice the way the bar of eighty percent dark disappeared square by square over the course of the next two weeks. Trust Bond to like a bitter aftertaste. Q added it to his monthly grocery delivery and Bond, like the chocolate bars, kept showing up. 

***

The second time, well—

They’d spent Christmas together by then, and New Year’s Eve, too. They went to the office party, where Bond danced with him—two dances, the last ones, each of them taking a turn leading—and then pulled him into a midnight kiss. Afterward, at home, Bond stripped off Q’s new tuxedo with ridiculous care, a soft and dangerous fondness in his eyes. 

Bond’s clothes, paperbacks, and ridiculous shaving equipment had long ago started to make homes for themselves in his flat, and Q had a spare toothbrush, a few outfits, and various tech-related necessaries at Bond’s. Q sometimes spent his days off there, doing things like playing video games and designing ridiculous things that would never make it past a budget committee but got Bond to laugh or sigh wistfully. In return, Bond frequently lounged around Q’s flat in varying stages of undress, doing things like reading on the sofa, watching Top Gear, playing with the cats, and becoming increasingly more experimental with his breakfast recipes.

(Q had loved the homemade cinnamon rolls and he’d been pleasantly surprised by the leftover-Chinese omelets; the caviar-stuffed crepes had been a bit much, however.)

On January second, Q went around to the shops, Bond’s breakfast list in hand, and stopped in front of the pink packaging that went up practically the day after Christmas. As he did, he remembered the warm, impossible look on Bond’s face from two nights ago. 

He then made the executive decision to back the fuck away from anything that might pressure either one of them into putting words to those feelings. 

On February 11th, Q left to do a recruitment tour of the UK with Helen from HR, who was an excellent judge of humanity and a competently trained scientist but not, in her words, “qualified to evaluate cutting-edge technological innovation.” They covered five to ten subjects in a day, sometimes hundreds of miles apart, sometimes all from the same conglomeration of university talent. The travel was tiring, and so were the interviews, traditional and otherwise. Q missed Bond’s breakfasts. And bickering with him over Top Gear. And sex. And cuddles. And the cats, who were undoubtedly trying to trick Bond into feeding them extra, and, failing that, trying to get him to bring out the laser pointer. 

It was odd being the one “on-mission” while Bond stayed at home. 

Q spoke with Bond every night, ostensibly to make sure the cats hadn’t died under his care, and tried not to sound old while he talked about how young these possible recruits were, how arrogant or timid, how much they still had to grow, and the need to judge whether MI6 would provide fertile soil for them or shape someone’s already twisted mind into one of Escher’s spiral staircases. 

“Escher’s staircases? Really?” Bond asked. Q could just see the ‘you’re so pretentious’ eyebrow raise, but Bond could shove it in the same cupboard he kept his silly Taittinger Blanc de Blanc Brut champagne. 

“It can be easy to get muddled in this job, if you’ve the wrong frame of mind for it,” Q said. “To forget yourself and what’s important to you. You know that.” 

“Do you ever forget?” Bond asked. 

Q paused. Last time Bond had pulled one of his Schrodinger’s Agent disappearing acts, Q had calmly and rationally considered the shortest number of steps it would take to set an entire country ablaze. He had then reminded himself that if Bond made his way back, they wouldn’t be able to fuck in a jail cell. Well, not comfortably, anyway. And cuddling with the cats together would be right out. 

“Q?” Bond asked. 

“You help me remember when I do,” Q said, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake, showing Bond that the North-pointing needle on the other end of the comms could wobble. Just a little bit. Every so often. 

“You help me too,” Bond said, surprisingly serious. “Just like you help your Branch, and M, and just like you’ll help whichever poor sod you drag back to London with you.” 

“Well, perhaps not _just like_,” Q demurred, guiding them back onto lighter ground. 

“Oh yes?” Bond asked, taking his cue. His voice lowered, he asked, “And how can I help you tonight? Or is that something you’d like me to decide?” 

They had phone sex that left Q pleasantly sated and smiling into his pillow as he fell asleep. He only realized what day it had been when he saw the date, February 15th, on his phone the next morning. 

***

The third time, they’d long since said the important words. A few days after New Year’s, Bond picked up a velvety heart-shaped chocolate box while they were doing the shopping, and he looked from the box to Q and back again. “Are we doing Valentine’s Day?” he asked. 

It was an out. It was a chance for Q to make a speech about Hallmark and capitalism and being above it all. 

Unfortunately, after all this time Q knew very well that Bond secretly liked romantic shite, so he resigned himself to possibly dozens of future Valentine’s Days and said, “I’ll buy into it if you will.” 

“Be still my beating heart,” Bond said dryly. 

***

That January, Q delved into the surprisingly complicated world of _Theobroma cacao _and began to figure out how to make a life-sized Walther PPK shaped out of eighty percent dark chocolate. Moneypenny and the chocolate-hungry Q Branch staff were quite happy to dispose of any evidence left over from his failed efforts, and in the meantime Q hid two decoy presents to throw Bond off the scent of his real gift. By the time Valentine’s rolled around, the gun had a chocolate clip full of chocolate bullets, and even made a clicking sound when someone pulled the trigger. Q was fairly sure he had earned an honorary chocolatier’s certificate. 

There was only one fly in the ointment: he couldn’t actually get the gun to fire without destroying its structural integrity or adding significant supporting elements. However, given that he didn’t want to be responsible for a round of tragic chocolate-bullet-related clothing casualties, perhaps that was for the best. 

***

On the day of, Q found himself woken up before the sun so he could be the recipient of a sweet and slow good morning blowjob. Bond waved off Q’s drowsy attempts to reciprocate and told him to stay in bed for breakfast. “Plenty of time before work,” Bond said. “It might be best to just go back to sleep for a bit; it will take a little while.” He then kissed Q’s cheek and was out the door, a spring in his step as though he’d been the one who had started the day with a lovely orgasm. A short while later things started clinking and clanking in the kitchen. 

Well, well. Breakfast in bed. Definitely a Valentine’s Day classic. Q crossed his fingers that it wouldn’t be scrambled eggs and champagne, which were…fine, but more Bond’s favorites than his own. 

Or, oh, God—what if it was worse than scrambled eggs and champagne? What if Bond’s breakfast somehow tasted terrible and Q had to lie about it and start a tradition of poorly-executed deception that tainted all of their Valentine’s Days forevermore? 

No, no. It wouldn’t taste terrible. Bond knew what he was doing. Breakfast would undoubtedly be just as brilliant as the blowie. 

But oh, fuck, what if it was too good? What if Bond made some Great British Bake Off monstrosity with motors and moving parts, and they ended up silently regarding Q’s horrible inert lump of chocolate that couldn’t even fire a bullet before Bond said pityingly, “It looks quite good, really.” 

Shit. Shit, fuck, fuck, shit. 

No. No, it was going to be fine. Moneypenny had seen the finished product and told him that it was very impressive and beautiful, and he had multiple reports that it tasted good. 

(Maybe he could make a working chocolate gun for their fifth official Valentine’s. Surely chocolate technology would have progressed in five years?) 

At least he and Bond had spoken frankly about Valentine’s sex and had agreed not to surprise each other with anything outside their usual repertoire, so there was no pressure or need for worries about ridiculous costumes there. 

(“I’ll save the Kirk and Spock uniforms for another time,” Bond had joked.

“Ditto the homemade sex toy,” Q had said. 

They had given each other intrigued looks and enjoyed a nice little talk about the sex they wouldn’t be having on Valentine’s Day but might have in the next couple of months, missions and work allowing.)

After a nice little doze, during which the smells from the kitchen became increasingly tantalizing, Bond returned to the bedroom. He brought with him a tray of savory not-cinnamon rolls that had been baked into a circle with a little tail on the end—a Q. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said, presenting the tray to Q with crinkled eyes. He then sat down on the bed next to him and promptly opened his paperback as though Q’s judgment of his efforts was completely uninteresting. He also definitely wasn’t glancing around for hiding spots that might conceal his own gift. 

Q grinned. “Looks delicious,” he said, picking up the tail roll to try. Whatever it tasted like, it was clearly the product of an impressive effort from a man whose favorite dishes to make were scrambled eggs, pasta, and avocado with vinaigrette. 

Q took his first bite. Chewed. Made a truly indecent noise, swallowed, and immediately lunged for another bite. The roll had a tangy pesto in the middle instead of cinnamon filling, and the one he’d bit into was topped with salty bacon, sharp cheese, and earthy little black truffle flakes. It was an explosion of all of Q’s favorite flavors. “Dear God,” he managed to say before stuffing the rest of it into his mouth, wolfing it down with genuine passion if not with romantic delicacy. 

Bond beamed at him, all pretense of reading set aside. “Good?” he asked, faux-innocent. 

Q pulled him into a garlicky kiss. A short one. “It’s fucking amazing,” he said, and then he ate another before remembering that he was meant to reciprocate. “Hang on,” he said. “It’s in the blast freezer out in the garage.” 

Bond made an intrigued noise. “I didn’t know we had one of those.” After an Incident, he generally kept out of the garage. 

“We…do…” Q said, wondering what kind of culinary monster he was enabling by revealing this. “I find that it’s excellent for cooling hot metal as well as hot food.” And heated chocolate, on those days when Bond was out on a mission. 

His lungs tightened in his chest as he fetched his present. It wasn’t savory. Should he have done something savory? 

No. The gun itself was clean and simple and 80 percent, just like Bond liked. The bullets and the clip slid into place just so. The surface of the chocolate shone smoothly across every corner and crevice, tempered perfectly, and his creation was sturdy enough for Q to lift it and settle it without fear into the usual equipment box, this one lined with the same parchment paper he’d seen under Bond’s rolls. At the last moment he’d even managed a little chocolate radio to go with it. 

“Oh?” Bond asked, raising an intrigued eyebrow at the equipment case when Q returned to the room. 

“007,” Q said, mock-formal, and handed it off. 

Bond opened it with care. To Q’s relief, a delighted grin immediately spread over his face. “Christ, did you really make this?” Bond asked, gesturing at the gun. 

“I did, yes,” Q said proudly. “You can even take the clip out.” 

Bond did so immediately. “Chocolate bullets!” he exclaimed, and he popped one into his mouth, closing his eyes as he sucked on it. “Mmm. And a surprise inside! Is that champagne?” 

Q smiled slyly. He might have had enough time to tinker with some alcoholic bullet fillings. “Maybe,” he said. “Think of it as Russian Roulette.” 

Bond looked consideringly at the gun in its case. “You know, there have been times I’ve thought about eating my gun, but never like this,” he said. 

Oh, fuck. Q hadn’t even thought of that. Why hadn’t he thought of that? 

Bond glanced up and chuckled a little at whatever he saw on Q’s face. “It’s all right, Q. It’s good to know that I have an excellent alternative now.” He pointed the gun at himself and pulled the trigger, smiling when it clicked but didn’t fire. “See? Perfect.” He pulled Q into a kiss. 

The kiss was a little garlicky and a lot chocolatey, but it still tasted like a good Valentine’s Day should—like it had been made with love. 

Maybe they weren’t too bad at this romance thing after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 Constructive criticism is welcome.


End file.
